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Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Passing laws is not always the best solution to our problems

The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S.
Constitution, addresses rights that are secured in the body of the
Constitution, but in general, less specific terms. The Bill of Rights came to
be because the rights it detailed were considered so important that they should
be specifically acknowledged, so that there will be no doubt as to their
importance, and to make it crystal clear those rights are guaranteed to the
people.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution solidifies the
right of the people to own firearms. Today, this is the most controversial of
the ten. There is an on-going effort to pass more restrictive gun control laws,
and every time a gun is used in a crime the loud protests crank up again.

Emotions or bad reasoning, and sometimes-ill motives, are
behind this movement. Somehow, many or most of the anti-gunners blame not the
shooter’s evil intent and illegal acts, but the gun. They not only disbelieve,
but ridicule the oft-used expression, “a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy
with a gun,” which gives a strong clue to their actual intention: to rid the country
of all guns. Given the laws that already exist that make killing illegal, just
like the laws against illegal drug use that are routinely ignored, more gun
laws will fail to achieve their goal.

The NRA and its members are the favored boogeymen. These
folks are often blamed for the actual gun violence as well as for opposing more
stringent gun restrictions, despite the fact that none of them have ever
actually been the ones responsible for any of these atrocities.

It is not irrelevant that in the case of the evil cretin who
killed and injured some 50 church goers recently, was not an NRA member, but it
is important that it was a former NRA instructor that intervened after the
attack, shooting and disabling the killer, and likely saving a few lives. A
good guy with a gun DID stop a bad guy with a gun.

The real problem that we have is not that the Second
Amendment needs to be rewritten, reinterpreted or repealed, but that the
impulse to attack, maim and kill be controlled.

Similar problems exist with the First Amendment’s protection
of free speech.

There are some restrictions on free speech. For example, you
can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, as the age-old saying goes. And some
speech is illegal because it harms individuals. Libel is one: a published
false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation.
Slander is another: making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's
reputation. And inciting violence is illegal, and so-called “fighting
words” may be illegal.

The First Amendment protects most speech, especially
unpopular speech. So-called “hate speech” is not illegal, unless it incites
violence. Political comments challenging the government or government officials
is also protected speech.

And it protects freedom of the press, which is a
long-standing and important function of the First Amendment. It is crucial that
news media be free to provide important information to the people so that they
can be well informed and prepared to make knowledgeable decisions. It is
particularly important that the press be free to publish factual information
about government and those who serve the people in government, no matter how
much they may dislike it.

But that protection presupposes the media will discharge its
critical duty honestly, following the principles of accuracy, fair play and
impartiality.

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press, but does
it also guarantee that the people and organizations that provide the news will behave
themselves? Unfortunately, as does the Second Amendment, it assumes honest and
upright behavior, but it cannot guarantee that people will do the right thing.

What about those episodes when media organizations and their
employees fail in their duty to the people and instead produce distortions, exaggerations,
and errors that are not adequately corrected, as well as sometimes providing outright
false information? The First Amendment protects the people who commit these
wrongs, unlike those private individuals who commit libel and slander? But
there is a reason for that.

Both the First Amendment and the Second Amendment represent our
Founders recognition of principles of freedom. We are bound to honor the Constitution,
making changes very infrequently, and only in response to a great need that
does not weaken the founding principles. Changes must not be made merely to
achieve some supposed current need that may fade away in a few years.

We can pass laws against guns to keep them out of the hands
of bad guys, and at the same time keep them out of the hands of good guys who
won’t kill anyone, but will use them for legal purposes, including
self-defense.

And we can pass laws to punish news people who abandon
ethical standards, but will also cast a pall on the dissemination of important
information, as news folk carefully walk a thin line.

More laws will not correct the character flaws of killers
and incompetent news people, so let’s focus on that problem.